Page 6 of Just a Little Wicked (Wicked Sisters #2)

Connor

Erikson, I’m sorry for laughing so hard when you told me she threw you off the boat.

Connor

Did you find her again?

Connor

Erik?

E rikson wished like hell he was anywhere else but standing on a dirt path near the ocean, trying to convince the biggest hardass he’d ever met to attend her sister’s wedding.

His brother was really testing the limit of things Erikson would do for him.

Connor was older by two years, but he and Erikson had been unusually close growing up, mostly because they’d horrified their parents with their claims of being haunted.

They’d suffered together, and then they’d built Grimm Reality from scratch together, growing from a Youtube show to a nationally acclaimed prime-time TV show with one goal in mind: normalize the paranormal so that other kids didn’t feel as alone as they had.

Then his brother had met Holly, living proof of the paranormal, and realized the world wasn’t ready for someone like her.

A few months ago, Connor had left his role as host of the show, deciding to close that chapter of his life and open a new one with Holly.

Erikson was happy for him. Connor had always been serious and driven, to the point where the show had become his wife and baby all rolled into one.

Holly was exactly what he needed in his life.

But Erikson wasn’t Connor. He had no problem letting loose and having fun.

He regularly went on vacations, exploring remote corners of the world and experiencing all that different cultures had to offer.

He didn’t need the Celeste women to open him up, or to evolve him from what he was.

He didn’t need to be here, chasing Winter Celeste and dealing with all the problems the seer brought with her, but he loved Connor fiercely, and he would do anything for his brother, even if it meant tracking down a five foot two, spritely terror that threw him overboard into the ocean.

The memory would have made him grind his teeth, but he was far more concerned with the pallor Winter’s face had taken when she’d slipped into the trance, going as still and breathless as a statue.

He didn’t know why she was running, but he did know that Winter was as stoic and unfaltering as a stone pillar.

Her entire personality was the opposite of fun.

She would never do something as flighty as skip out on her sister’s wedding and bounce from town to town if she didn’t have a good reason, but until now, he honestly hadn’t cared about her reason.

He’d simply wanted to retrieve her and get her home so he could focus on making the most of his brother’s wedding.

But the more adamant she’d been about getting rid of him and the more helpless she’d looked each time he’d seen her, the more interested he’d become in her motives.

He’d begun to suspect her “impossible situation” posed a danger to her family and possibly his brother, and now there was no going back until Erikson discovered exactly why she’d left in the first place.

“What proposal?” he asked warily.

“Help me.” The words were spoken through thin lips, her voice so faint that he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. Winter Celeste, the tiny Amazon who’d probably bullied adults as a child, was asking for help?

“What?”

She blew out a breath, making a strand of red hair lift from her forehead. “Help me,” she said louder, her jaw clenching. “Help me find someone, and if we’re successful, I’ll go back for the wedding with you. In your truck. No arguments.”

“Who are you looking for?”

“The man in the vision I just had. I have a feeling he’s the key to my situation.”

Erikson held up his hands. “You’ve lost me.”

She sighed again and tilted her head to the side. “Come with me to my room. I’ll explain everything.”

She looked so grave that Erikson couldn’t help poking at her as he fell in step beside her. “You know if you wanted to spend the night with me, you only had to ask.”

Winter wrinkled her nose in distaste as a breeze dragged across the ocean and lifted her hair from her neck. “Pass.”

“Why not? I could show you how to relax. You’re looking pretty tense.”

Her lips parted on an exasperated exhale, and he had to admit she had a nice mouth. Plush lips, white teeth that probably knew how to nip and cause pain. He wasn’t really into that sort of thing, but he knew a few men who’d die to have this little hellion boss them around in bed.

“I know how to relax,” she said, in the most un-relaxed voice ever.

“You’ll have to forgive me when I say I highly doubt that.”

“I don’t forgive you. And this conversation is a waste of my time.”

“Fine. Then why don’t you get started on telling me what’s really going on?”

She glanced around. “Let’s wait until we have some privacy.”

There was no one else in sight, but she was acting like she expected someone to pop out of thin air at any moment. Erikson was a man who chose his battles though, so he followed her another ten minutes to a small B they couldn’t be expected to suddenly fashion them into weapons with only a few days’ notice.

Plus, their aunts would be gone up until the wedding, traveling across New England to discover and connect with other Wickeds.

She interrupted his mulling. “When you touched me on the path just now, I had another vision.” She explained how she’d seen his brother’s wedding, and an unknown Witch guest named Atlantes.

“He told Stacy he was there to help. He had to have meant he was there to help with the council. I can’t imagine any other reason he’d be at a strange Wicked’s wedding.”

She might be on to something. The Witch’s presence at the wedding was odd.

After a lengthy rivalry, the Celestes were just now making friends with Stacy and her twin brothers, who owned a competing apple farm across town.

Erikson had witnessed Stacy use her magic to balance out Holly’s Wicked powers once, and it had been like Christmas and his birthday all rolled into one.

For a man who’d hunted the paranormal his entire life, viewing magic in the flesh had been the most validating moment of his life.

But as far as he was aware, Witches and Wickeds only grudgingly tolerated each other, even if historically that hadn’t been the case.

So why would an unknown Witch appear at his brother’s wedding?

“Where do we find this guy?” Erikson asked. They’d go see him right now and demand answers.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. There weren’t many clues in the vision beyond his name.

I need to talk to Stacy, and I need more visions, which means .

. . I think I need you.” She wrinkled her nose again in what he was quickly becoming familiar with as her “distaste” face.

“If I have more visions, maybe we can find out why he’ll be at the wedding, or if he can stop the Shadow Council. ”

“What if he can’t?”

“Then I don’t have a choice.”

He paced in front of the window. He didn’t like that alternative, either. No, he hated that alternative. He and Winter weren’t friends, but the idea of her being forced to do the bidding of murderers sure as hell didn’t sit right with him.